I'm the Rag Doll Boy with Broken Eyes
by sothereyougo
Summary: Violet has decided that the only way to stay sane and safe in The Murder House is to try to live in the "permanent now", but the meaning of the phrase is more complicated and potentially more costly than she initially believes.


**Pairings/characters:** Violate (Tate/Violet), Kit  
**Spoilers/Warning/Triggers: **Through Season Two of AHS. AU, post-Season One, and liberties are taken beginning with "Continuum" and going forward. The setting is, vaguely, the present day. Mature themes, language, and situations. Moderate violence. Blood squick? **Disclaimer:** All characters and concepts belong to the original authors, and their copyrights are sacrosanct. None of this world is mine. **A/N:** Written for the ahs_exchange on LJ. Winner of "Best interpretation of the Prompt" for Round 3, Feb. 2013. Prompt is at the end of the story. Title is from "She Wants to Play Hearts" by Ryan Adams from _Demolition_, 2002. The timeline for real world events as connected to story events is only approximate. All references to actual persons are fictionalized and have no connection to the actual person(s). **No actual persons appear as per guidelines. **Italicized text is either a character thinking and not speaking aloud or a character remembering a scene, in other words, a flashback. I added a little and edited a little since the exchange posting because I couldn't resist fixing a couple of things. Also, I have some other notes at the end because I'm a geek.

* * *

It was starting again. There was sprucing up going on with the house, both inside and out, the kind of thing that only happened when it had been sold again. Moira hated it when strangers mucked around trying to clean things, so Violet steered well clear of her.

"How bored do I have to be to Google the etymology of 'sprucing up'? And what's going on around here has nothing to do with Prussian leather goods."

Violet was as bored as she could remember being, but it tended to be an ongoing proposition, especially in January when there were ten long months to be withstood before Undead Amnesty Day, or Halloween, as the living called it.

"Did you say something?"

Tate was reading _American Psycho_ because, as he'd shrugged, "_I'm going to eventually, so I might as well get it over with_." Violet was torn because she thought people who went by three names were almost always bound to be assholes, so she figured she couldn't be objective. She'd also decided that epically violent misogyny even in the form of social satire or history, if that was even what it was, was still shitty. So, today she was leaning against it.

Even with eternity stretching out before her, she wasn't about to seek out an experience that was likely to just piss her off with no adequate payoff afterward to mellow her back out, unless she could think of a way to lure the author to the house for a little first hand experience with a far more interesting specimen, hell, make that plural, than the one he'd created.

"Never mind. You do know somebody's getting ready to move in here, right?"

Tate closed the book and stretched. Violet eyed the expanse of pale skin and corded belly muscle that the action revealed as his t-shirt rode up a few inches. There was also the faintest glimpse of black elastic underwear band peeking out above the waist of his jeans, and Violet's body responded with a familiar, but particularly intense, tingly warmth and hollowing-out sensation in the vicinity of her cunt.

Maybe it was a cliché, but the unwitting, innocent baring of flesh really did have a powerful allure, and she liked thinking of her girly bits with the dirtiest names she could, the good old classics, when she wanted to get herself even hotter. It was working too.

"Yeah, I noticed."

She knew the second he realized that she had completely lost interest in the subject and was studying the shapes his lips made when he answered her instead. She knew because there was some subtle twinkle of light there in his eyes before they went darker, blacker, must be the pupils dilating…

"Bored now."

Said in her best Vamp-Willow voice because she knew he had a thing for when good girls went bad, that he saw something of her in it even if he knew better than to take more of the credit for _that_ than was his due.

His shirt had settled back into place, so Violet reached under and ran her fingertips lightly, teasing light, over one hipbone and then on to the now-hidden skin just above his belt. The part of his belly that she could no longer see tensed instinctively, and she would have to say she felt it inside her skull rather than heard it when his voice dropped lower, lower in a musical sense like scales and octaves as well as in volume, as his face got closer and closer.

"_Yeah_, I noticed."

There was a flash of crescent dimple, and then his mouth was on hers, lips parted, but the pressure built slowly, the hunger matching her own, but deliberate and predatory, sinking in for the duration, his tongue finally finding hers when she'd just begun to ache for its absence. Violet threaded the fingers of one hand through Tate's hair, stopping the motion when a lock of it curled around, just so, at the base of her knuckles.

As the weight of the kiss and his body began it, Tate then guided them down on the bed, his hands coming to rest just above her waist on both sides, the grip firm and his fingers warm against her skin. Now it was her turn to have her shirt pushed up out of place, his thumbs making circles and sliding up and down her ribs. Violet's other hand slid just part-way down the front of his jeans, pressed against the base of that same cord of muscle that had earlier caught her eye. As the kiss got wetter and more ravenous, she savored the gentle flex against her palm as his hips began to grind against hers, her hand caught between their bodies, the swelling hardness just beyond her grasp, the wetness seeping out of her a sign to expand her reach until her fingers closed around the shaft and the heel of her hand met answering wetness at his tip.

Tate groaned at her touch and broke off the kiss, trailing his lips and tongue across and over to her ear, the depth of longing behind them rivaling the surface greed, "Let me in now, Violet. I can't wait."

"But there're too many clothes."

Instantly, Tate's shirt was off, and he was reaching for his belt, but Violet got there first.

"Let me."

Her hand pressed against his chest, so he rolled over and onto his back, a smile stretching his lips, but his eyes were focused on Violet as she climbed on top of him to straddle the tops of his thighs. She threaded the length of belt out of the buckle and yanked it back hard to release the prong from its hole, then daintily flicked it clear. It wasn't teasing really. She was just savoring the moment and the sense of power that his wanting her so badly always inspired. She picked up the pace a little getting his fly undone and the zipper down, the first sight of his cock, an obscenely vivid bulge sharply outlined but still hidden under fabric, sending a fresh jolt from belly to loins.

Violet's eyes flicked back and forth from Tate's face, a study of barely-restrained ferocity that he was trying to mask with as calm an expression as he could muster, to that lurid bulge as she climbed off long enough to remove her tights and panties. When she looked over again he was still staring, not breaking eye contact while she tugged at his jeans and underwear, silently lifting his hips to let her finish undressing him.

"Violet…"

It came out a cross between a growl and a whine. Either way, she couldn't wait any longer either, so she straddled him again and took hold of his length, squeezing a bit as she massaged up and down, reveling in the contrast between silky surface and blood-engorged rigidity, and spread the wet at the tip down the shaft with her thumb as she circled around the head to collect it. There was a time not that long ago that doing all this out in the light where he could see what she was doing, could watch her face as her jaw went a little slack and her eyes widened in anticipation of what was to come, was more than she could do. She used to avoid his gaze when she was touching him there, but that time had past.

Now, watching the fullness of his lips as they formed the oval that served as a tantalizing frame for the low moans that escaped them sent a fresh rush of wet out of her to drip onto him as she leaned down for a kiss, pulling his bottom lip over hers and suckling it between her teeth. She rose up and began to guide him to her but wasn't surprised to hear his interrupting protest, a smirk, maybe even a slightly evil one, twisting across her face.

"Hey. You're the one who said there were too many clothes. Take 'em off, everything."

Violet eased back and settled again flush over only one of his thighs, grinding back and forth to the double purpose of upping the intensity of her own sensations as she complied but also to torment him while he waited, lifting first her lavender cotton sweater and then the full olive skirt, the latter pulled over her head as well so she could keep rocking slickly against him. Tate, meanwhile, was getting twitchy, his hips flexing and legs bouncing her a little. Quickly, she undid the clasp and slid the bra straps down her arms, enjoying anew his reaction to seeing her breasts unveiled, how almost every time, especially when they went about it somewhat slowly like this, it was as if it was his first glimpse of them ever. It was something akin to a little kid staring into the display case at an ice cream shop, the same giddy anticipation of tasting right down to the fervid eye gleam thing going on there.

As she raised her leg to straddle him again, Tate took the opportunity to cup her labia in his fingers, sliding his thumb in-between to part them and then rub it against her clit, his index finger pressing inside her and then in and out, their combined scents pungent as Violet gasped a breath, hers salty and sweet and a tart muskiness his contribution to their mingled perfume of lust and maybe love too, but she wasn't going to even think about that.

A big part of adjusting to ghost-world had been deciding that it didn't make any sense to try to keep measuring time the way the living did, that keeping a nodding acquaintance with sanity required a version of the Alcoholics Anonymous credo of coping one day, even one moment at a time, the present being the safest place to anchor her experience of this life, or whatever it was, and that meant her emotions and connection for and with Tate too. Love as a concept was too expansive but too restrictive at the same time. It wanted to flow out into foreverville where she couldn't let herself go, not if she wanted to keep from ending up like Nora, days and years stretched out so far but still so traumatized by the past that she got horribly stuck somewhere in-between the two. Violet sure as shit wouldn't find any kind of peace living in her own past either, a place overflowing with horrors and recriminations and endless what-ifs. No, the only bearable place to be was the "permanent now".

"So wet. You want me bad, don't you? I need in you now, Violet. Now."

His hands were clutching at her, seeking a locus of control and seizing on her hip bones as she positioned herself over him, her hand guiding for a second or two and then letting go as she rode down his length, her turn to moan at how good it was, that familiar, but still somehow new every time, stretch and filling, the heat of it still surprising, and the intensity of the friction their movements made, nothing else like it, as she rolled her hips forward and back, matching forces, him pushing in to bottom out, her seeking that exquisite pressure of his tip stroking her cervix, him inside her as far as they could go. And again, again, and again, but this time he was too wound up, too wild with it to be satisfied with this push and pull, needing to thrust.

"Hold on."

He turned them over, pausing to make sure her head was on the pillow and their bodies still aligned, before he began to move again, picking up speed and grunting with the effort, Violet's moans punctuated with staccato breaks as his body bore down on hers, the force of it stifling her breaths, air pushed out and almost no time to pull any back in. Then, she swore she must be hallucinating because, even though her body was the best proof there could be that Tate was right there on top of her, his cock throbbing inside her and her release building and building, she _saw_ him another place too, fully dressed and watching the two of them fuck, his eyes registering wonder but not looking away either.

Somehow, as Violet cried out with the ecstasy of coming, completely filled with him and his louder groans signaling that he was right there with her, as she could feel his cock's jerk and quiver as he pulsed inside her, he was still _right there_ too, watching them in silence, standing motionless at the foot of the bed. Violet squeezed her eyes tightly closed, Tate relaxing above her, straining inward one last time before pinning her to the bed with his full weight, lingering, claiming her for his. When she opened them again, that other Tate was gone.

* * *

"Okay, how'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Ha. Ha. Did you do it on purpose, or did it just happen because you were so into fucking me?"

"I'm _always_ so into fucking you, but I still have no idea what you're talking about."

As if in testimonial, he kissed her bare shoulder and then made aim for her mouth. If she let him get going again, there'd be no getting anything but sex out of him for the foreseeable future, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but her curiosity was piqued. That, and if she was honest about it, her quirkily competitive side had come out to play as well. She thought he'd taught her all the wraithy tricks he'd mastered over his longer years of ghostly existence, and Violet didn't like the idea that he might have held one back, especially one as potentially entertaining as this astral projection or bi-location or whatever the hell it was.

Maybe she'd like to get a little voyeurism on herself sometime. It had to be way more exciting than watching a sex tape, not that they had any. Violet stopped his forward progress by taking hold of both sides of his head and peering deeply and skeptically into his eyes.

"All right, then. Maybe it was spontaneous or whatever. You mean to tell me that you don't know that, right when we lit the fuse for the big fireworks display at the end there, you appeared by your lonesome, the two of us over here still banging away, but you were standing there watching us too, right _there_."

And Violet let go with one hand to point to the spot.

"No fucking way."

"I saw you, Tate."

"Seriously?"

"Abso-fuckin-lutely."

"Okay, okay. I believe you, but I got nothin'."

"You believe me though?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think it was even possible. Unless–"

"Unless what?"

"Unless it was one of our housemates being me so they could watch. But that doesn't make any sense because they could do it a lot safer staying invisible."

"Yeah."

Violet agreed on that last point because it was one of Tate's little hypocrisies that he had and did spy on and watch whomever he felt like, but he'd violently re-murder anybody who did the same when he was with her, especially with her that way.

"Besides, Moira is probably the only one who might know how to do it, and there's no way in hell she'd ever want to. Well, maybe young Moira, but she's not exactly running the show, so no."

She was listening, but another desire was capturing Violet's attention, so she collected her skirt and top from their landing places and put them back on, not bothering with the under things still adorning the floor, leaving them as silent little testimonials to their coupling and most likely as harbingers of further exertions soon to follow.

"Well, I'm not bored any more, but I am hungry. Or I would be if I still got hungry. Anyway, want some cereal?"

"Sure. Thanks, Violet."

"Don't get used to it."

* * *

The last thing Violet saw as she sent herself to the kitchen was him rolling his eyes at her, so she started to retort, "Watch out, Tate, or they'll freeze like that," but by then she was already standing in front of the refrigerator. Timing was everything, and that was doubly true right now because she wasn't alone.

There was already somebody blocking her view and her access to the milk, and that somebody was Tate himself, wearing the same jeans and pale blue button down shirt as when he was staring back at her from the end of the bed. Violet hoped he was too preoccupied to notice as she quickly crept up closer behind him and put her mouth right next to his ear.

"Well, I'll give ya one thing. At least you didn't stand there jacking off while the rest of you was getting the real thing. I said I'd bring you some damn cereal. Impatient much?"

Tate jumped and actually whirled to face her like, holy hell, like he was alive and had seen one of the two of them suddenly appear out of thin air like that. Violet burst out laughing, while Tate continued to stand there just gaping at her.

"Okay, Okay. Don't get pissed. As soon as I scarf down some cereal, we can go again."

"Do what?"

Violet took his hands in hers and placed them on her hips, then wound her arms around his neck.

"Wow, I thought it was just a figure of speech, but I really did fuck you stupid. And in what alternative universe would you wear that shirt?"

Shaking her head lightly, she leaned in and laid one on him. Served him right. No cereal for Tate. Well, at least he was kissing her back, briefly anyway, but suddenly he pulled away and crashed awkwardly against the open refrigerator, almost falling in, in his haste to put some distance between them.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spy on you. I'm obviously not who you think I am."

As far as she knew, Tate didn't do accents or impressions, and this guy sounded Northeastern, maybe a hint of Boston even, and Violet ought to know because that was where she'd moved here from.

"Who the hell are you then?"

Now it was Violet who was backing away as he took a step towards her with one hand out in an "It's okay," gesture, which it definitely was _not_.

"I'm Kit Walker, I mean, Kit Forrester."

"How do you not know your own name? Stay back. You so don't wanna mess with me. I'll rip both your arms off and beat you to death with them, if Tate doesn't get there first."

"Wait, wait. It's okay. Really. I'm an actor. My real name is Kit Walker, but my stage name is Kit Forrester."

"Never heard of you."

"I'm not famous. Yet. I just landed a big part in a movie that's shooting here in L.A. , so I needed a place to live."

"So you bought this place? Either you're incredibly naïve or incredibly stupid, or you have a death wish, or some combination of all three. Didn't you wonder why a place this size was available dirt cheap and already furnished? Didn't you do any research?"

"I promise you I don't have a death wish, mainly because it wouldn't be possible. And I've been plenty naïve and stupid in my life, but not so much any more."

"Whatever. By the way, my bullshit detector works great, and your eyes are probably that color because you're so full of it."

"Wait, don't go."

"How did you know–"

"You got a little dimmer. Look, I know what you are, but you don't get what I meant by it not being possible for me to have a death wish any more–"

"What do you think you know? You don't know shit about me."

"I know you're a ghost, and I can't have a death wish because I'm already dead too."

"Get the fuck out of here. You're not a ghost, but you _are_ a liar."

"Please believe me. I'll be happy to explain everything to you, I promise."

"Yeah, and my boyfriend, I know you remember him because you just watched us screwing. Oh, and also, you look _exactly_ like him too by the way, just in case you were too busy looking at his ass or whatever you're into, you sick fuck. _He_ promises not to get you close enough to _really_ dead, so you have just enough time to crawl off this property before you croak, and we never have to even think about you again."

"Wait, please. I'm not lying. I'm a vampire, okay. Really, I am."

Violet leveled her most baleful glare full bore at him.

"Yeah, right. I thought you'd be a little sparklier, Team Edward Sissy-hands or whatever your real name is."

"I'm really a vampire, but I'm not a killer. It's not necessary any more. Hasn't been for a long time. Please let me explain."

But it was too late.

"I could do this myself, but I'm not selfish like that. What till he gets a load of you, Barnabas Collins. Hey, Tate. Get down here."

* * *

"_Well this puts a completely new spin on self-loathing_."

So, no, neither of them had nearly murdered the guy because it turned out it really wasn't possible. Tate was only half-listening at this point, but Violet was hanging on every word. _He_ was just waiting for a good time to nonchalantly find out which movie or book method was the real deal way to off a vampire, just in case he had to, or more like wanted to, sometime, possibly very soon. Clearly, the one about sunlight doing the trick was crap, not to mention the no reflection in mirrors or mirrored surfaces thing, and he could obviously be photographed, both on film as well as digitally. Instead, here they all were sitting around the kitchen table listening to Kit Forrester, aka Kit Walker, the autobiography.

Well, it was fairly interesting. He figured Kit here only told them what seemed to be the truth, based on the internet research he'd done to check it out since he hadn't believed one word out of the guy's mouth at first, because he already knew they couldn't rat him out to the authorities, if there even were any authorities who'd believe this kind of shit, especially in L.A., which was delusional-pathetic-loser central, including plenty of people who lived their miserable fucked-up lives pretending to be vampires.

He guessed he didn't really blame Violet for enjoying Kit's story, his tale of woe. And it sure as shit was filled to the brim with woe. He'd been wrongly committed to a hell-hole insane asylum for multiple homicides before being exonerated only to end up a short time later with not one, but two, dead wives. The guy sure could pick 'em, marrying the Doublemint Twins of ax-murdering bitches for double the crazy. Violet was a child of her era, so she loved some good irony, and, even if he was a little older than she was, his generation had been chock-full of appreciation for it too, the more messed-up the better.

Turned out, his doppelganger-in-vampire-clothing had just been cast in a big budget remake, seeing as how almost nobody in the business had had an original idea since old Kit here was a pup, of the crappy 1960's B-movie version of his own real life story, but nobody except him and Violet, along with a few other vampires and vampire support personnel, knew Jack shit about it. Jesus Happy Gilmore Christ was L.A. a fucking freak show, rife with hangers-on and sycophants and wannabes and wannabes-adjacent, and that apparently included a whole network of people who helped vampires blend right into the motion picture industry in good old Hollywoodland , USA.

That right there, the fact that quite a few people in show biz weren't just lame, evil, boring-ass clichés of mother fucking blood suckers in a figurative sense but were instead the real deal was whatever irony turned into when it went over to ridiculous, but to hear Kit tell it, they weren't all bad. It figured that some of the biggest tree-hugging assholes were the vampire version of vegan because they felt all guilty about needing blood to stay alive or up and around and collecting residuals anyway.

So, they had special pets, people who sold their own blood like skid row bums, except their leechy masters took really good care of them, sorta like veal or those geese they made that foie gras stuff out of, except healthier, because the vampires wanted to keep ringing the dinner bell as long as possible before needing to find a replacement. Apparently, the reward for being good, clean, quiet little veals was to get turned vampire themselves at whatever point they wanted, if they pleased their lord or lady.

Also, yeah, he hated the guy even if he was the Boston version of a hillbilly cracker who happened to look just like him.

"So, Kit, you were a pretty huge dumb-ass to confess, or fake-confess is more accurate, on tape to the dude who turned out to be the actual serial killer. What's his name again?"

"Dr. Thredson?"

"No, the serial killer nickname. Yeah, Bloody Face, right? I guess I'm kinda glad nobody ever decided to give me one if that's the best they can do. It's a little too on the nose if you ask me. Got lucky on that one thing then maybe."

"But you were just a messed-up kid. They don't give names to school shooters, except maybe the school name. But I'm no expert on the subject."

"But you do seem to know who I am. Maybe you knew who Violet was too before you showed up here? What's the story with that? "

"Well–"

"Ya know, I should fill you in sometime, Kit, when we're done with your turn. We can keep swappin' stories. I have a few more bodies to my credit than most people, or vampires even, know about, just in the interest of full disclosure, since you're baring your soul to us here and everything. It's the least I can do."

Tate kept his tone light, but he knew Kit got his meaning, and it sucked, but he figured Violet was too smart not to realize that some of his hostility was naked jealousy, the thought of which only amped up his Kit-loathing from reminding him that the creep had seen him literally naked, and Violet too.

"Come on, guys. Nobody's getting ready to whip 'em out and measure or anything, I hope, because I am beyond not interested."

One of Violet's eyebrows arched higher as another thought must have occurred to her, one that made it that much harder for Tate to pretend to be all calm and only imminently threatening.

"Well, maybe they're identical, so no point anyway."

"He's right, though, Violet. I did research this place before I bought it. I mean, it's called 'The Murder House', so I had to. The thing is, I kinda like ghosts, if they haven't been around long enough to go nuts or anything, which I figured you guys hadn't. I wanted to meet you both, especially once I saw a picture of you, Tate. How could I not?"

"Yeah, I'm not a big fan of what's out there. I mean, who looks good in a freakin' school photo, especially me who didn't exactly love school, which you know, and I didn't stick around long enough to get a cool mug shot or anything, so, whatever. I'm sure your head shots, is that the right name? Yeah, I bet they're way nicer than any pictures of me even though we look exactly alike. Why _do_ we look the same, Kit? Don't hold out on me now."

"Yeah, Kit. In case you thought we were already best buds and shit just because you tell a good fairy tale, Tate isn't the only one you don't wanna mess with, which I believe I did already warn you about."

That was his girl, so tough, so beautiful all the time, but especially when she had his back. The rush of emotion that surged through his entire torso, chest to gut, from just looking at her at times like this was what made Tate believe he really was capable of love because it felt exactly how everybody said love was supposed to.

"I only have a theory, and, you probably will think I'm bullshittin' you, so could you maybe cut me some slack here?

"Sure, Kit. I mean, how cool a guy are you? Turned into a vampire by that old school starlet, Raquel Welch. She _was_ still just a starlet back then in, what year was it? "

"1968."

"Early days then. Shoulda known something was up there. She's still pretty hot for an old lady, seriously. Did you fuck her? Come on, it was the 60's. Shit happened. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll."

"I don't kiss and tell, Tate, but she was very kind to me. Showed me the ropes when Lana and I came out here after she sold the movie rights the first time–"

"Yeah, Lana Winters. I saw that name. She was easy on the eyes too early on but into girls from what I read, so I know you didn't get with her. So, is she a vampire too?"

"No."

"That book of hers though. Another really brilliantly-thought-out title there: _Maniac_. They just don't write 'em like that any more, except they do."

"Okay, Tate. Let him answer the question already."

"It doesn't work that way for vampires. We stay the same, so the ones like Raquel who look like they have the really great plastic surgeons who keep them looking young but not freaky-looking like they're wearing rubber masks stretched too tight with no expression–"

Tate saw Violet's mouth drawn into a grim line. For supposedly having done his research, Kit was fucking clueless.

"Get on with it."

"What? Anyway, they _do_ have the absolute best doctors because they have to make them look like they _are_ aging, just doing it really well and still looking good because even vampire actors are mostly pretty vain I'd say. And it wears off pretty quick too, so those times they look extra good it's because they're only using makeup until they get a chance to go back to get more work done."

Violet was smirking all too fetchingly.

"So wrong. Fits this place perfectly though. Self-mutilation to look good for the part they're playing of gracefully-aging movie stars."

And Kit seemed to be noticing. Not allowed. Tate had to get them back on track.

"I know I started us off on this little tangent, but can we get back to why you and I look like a coupla twins separated at birth, which isn't possible, since you're about forty years older than me, counting your dead-time. Are you my real daddy, Kit? I mean, my mother was the biggest whore not up on the silver screen, so did you do her too?"

"No, that's not it. You're seriously not gonna believe this part. I think we're maybe clones or something, you and me, Tate."

"Shut the fuck up."

"That's not even the unbelievable part. It would have to be alien clones, but with human DNA. They must have implanted us as embryos into our mothers, but I don't know any of this for sure."

"Damn straight you don't. So, maybe you didn't turn out to be old Bloody Face, but I don't think they shoulda let you out of that nut-hatch after all."

Tate's hands had closed into fists without his even realizing it at first, but Violet saw, and she tried to get vampire-boy to realize how much trouble he was asking for.

"You're joking. You really don't wanna make jokes right now."

"Look, I get it. You don't have to believe me, but why would I lie? What does it get me? Those fuckers took everything from me in the end, including my kids. That's why I came here with Lana and laid low all this time and changed my name. Who'd believe me if I said aliens came and took my son and my daughter away after their mothers died? Nobody, that's who. So, no, I don't know if we really are alien clones, Tate, but, if you're so sure I'm wrong, you explain it."

Tate glared, and he saw Violet go paler, like she was holding her breath. Maybe she was changing her mind and didn't want the two of them to get rid of this freak. Maybe she liked the idea of another dead guy who looked exactly like him hanging around spilling fun facts about vampires and movie stars, or maybe she just really didn't want to see anybody else die, or go poof, or explode into rainbows and sparklers or whatever the fuck vampires actually did when they were snuffed out for good.

* * *

"That's not it, Tate. Jesus, you know I'm not into any of this Hollywood bullshit."

Violet had accepted the fact that Tate was jealous and possessive. Hell, it was sort of his raison d'être, but it was actually fascinating to watch him get worked up over a guy who might as well be his twin brother, fascinating in a poking-an-onyx-eyed-monster-with-a-sharp-stick-in-the-angel's-bow-mouth kind of way, and messing around with scary shit had always been her own weakness after all.

"I didn't think so. So, what? We're supposed to all hang out and do dinner? That's right. Does he even eat or pretend to eat? At least we still like the taste of actual food."

"I don't know. Can't we just see how it goes? I don't think he's a bad guy. He's just lonely, now that his friend Lana died. She was the only one besides Raquel who knew the truth about him, the whole truth. I thought you'd get that."

"Oh, boo hoo, a lonely vampire. You can't be serious."

"Well, does it have to be serious? Why can't it just be fun? You remember fun?"

She hadn't meant that to sting much, but Tate's eyes said that it did, and what else was in there, something that flickered for only a second before a dull, murderous rage took its place? Could it have been fear?

* * *

They were all shit-faced, Violet on red wine and he and Kit on beer, good beer. Violet was going through cigarettes like, well like a ghost who didn't have to worry about lung cancer, and all of it on Kit's dime. He could afford it.

"That's sweet. No, it is."

Tate had zoned out for a while, just watching the two of them talking, talking and laughing. Violet didn't flirt, hadn't even with him, but she smiled at Kit too much for his liking. Now her comment, and Kit's apparent embarrassment, snapped him back out of it.

"What's sweet? Aaawww, did the precious vampire rescue a puppy from a well or something? Maybe bring it back to life with his magic vampire blood? Lassie, the Vampire dog. That'd make a good TV show, all retro and post-modern and shit."

"No. I asked him why he changed his name to Kit Forrester, and he told me. It was a tribute to Raquel–"

"It's not a big deal. Kit Forrester was the name of the character she played in _Lady in Cement_, a movie she did with Frank Sinatra back in '68. A detective story, you know the type."

"Yeah, I do."

That had come out more ominous and jealous than he'd meant it to because he wanted to be cooler about this situation. He really did, to please Violet because he loved her more than anything, but what if Kit was right? What if they were clones with the same DNA?

* * *

When he saw what was happening Tate went invisible. He had to get closer, and he didn't think Kit would appreciate him returning the voyeuristic favor of watching him get it on with his blood-cow, since that must be what she was. They weren't fucking, but it was definitely sexual, for both of them apparently judging by the sounds she was making. Despite his growing hatred for Kit, the tableau was getting him hard.

They were on the couch in Ben Harmon's old office, not that he could remember if there had been one when it was Ben's office. It would have been just like him to think he was too cool to have a couch like a standard issue psychiatrist, but whatever. One of the later owners had left it behind, and it had become part of the package deal Kit got when he bought the place.

The girl was naked from the waist up, and Kit was drinking from her wrist, but he was touching her breasts too, cupping one and fingering the nipple of the other, alternately pinching it and stroking it with his thumb.

Tate moved closer still. He could hear sucking sounds, but he couldn't see any blood, well not until Kit swallowed hard and pulled back, letting a little ooze out before dragging his tongue down the girl's wrist lasciviously, a good word, very descriptive and very accurate, and the way his eyes glazed over while he was licking it up was very lascivious too. Tate knew that look. It was the same face he wore when he watched his own cock pumping in and out of Violet. Full-blown lust was what it was.

The air was heavy with the bitter metallic tang of blood, and it was blood as the food of life he supposed, unnatural life, but who was he to judge on that one point? Tate had always liked the idea of blood as a release, a cleansing of evil, and what he saw here seemed to be a perversion of that, not the opposite exactly, but a perversion all the same, and, speaking of perversion, he didn't want to look, even if in a lot of ways it was like looking into a mirror. That was the thought he used to steel himself before he checked. Tate had to know whether, even though it didn't seem like he was gonna do it any time soon, Kit _could_ fuck the girl if he wanted to.

He had to know if the guy could fuck anybody at all. It was pretty dark, and Kit had all his clothes on, so he had to lean in close to see. And it was. Kit's dick was hard, and he apparently didn't think that was any of Tate's business.

Kit pulled his mouth off the girl's wrist. Tate was so close that he heard the little wet smack it made before Kit spoke.

"Enough."

Tate landed on the floor of what he now thought of as their room, his and Violet's. And Kit had flung him there. Violet slept on unaware up there on their bed, full up and sated with the red wine Kit had bought for her, red like the blood that must have given him the power to do it, to throw Tate around in his own house, and, no mistake, this was still his house, and Violet was still his too.

For the first time though, he was really starting to wonder if he could keep things that way. The wave of fury that swept across him to blot out that fear was sudden and overpowering, and now Tate was the one that tasted blood, his own from biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming out his rage because it would wake Violet, wake her from her alcohol-poisoned dreams and into Tate's worst nightmare.

* * *

Things calmed down a little after that. Before he could even formulate a definitive plan to reassert his rightful position of dominance in the house, Kit had sought Tate out to apologize.

"_I'm really sorry. I didn't do that on purpose. It's just that vampires are vulnerable when we're feeding. It's overwhelming–" _

_"Like sex. A lot like it from what I could tell." _

_"Yeah, like that. But I get why you'd want some payback. I swear I had no idea I'd be able to see the two of you right away, much less walk in on a private moment. It won't happen again. You have my word. Either thing_."

Kit was apparently smart enough to have alluded only indirectly to the fact that he'd overpowered Tate, seemingly effortlessly. Tate took comfort in the fact that he had plenty of his own tricks too. Maybe Kit could sense his invisible presence if he lingered around, but he was almost certain that a blitz attack would restore the upper hand to where it belonged. For the time being he would let things ride, just watch and wait, two activities at which he naturally excelled. And all three of them were proof of that old saying or song or wherever it came from, about having nothing but time.

* * *

With every passing day though it seemed more and more like that was only going to stay true in the most literal sense. No matter how carefully he stood watch, how he weighed and measured every word, he never really caught Kit _trying_ to steal Violet away. He'd come in, usually late at night, and Violet would be the one asking him about the day's shooting, and Kit would just answer her questions. He didn't try to make it sound like nothing but party hats and lollipops either, but Tate could tell that it didn't matter that Kit would keep explaining that a lot of the time he was just sitting around his trailer reading or watching TV, waiting to be called to the set to do his thing.

Tate knew his Violet well enough by now to know that it wasn't _what_ Kit was actually doing during his hours away from the house that made her eyes alternately gleam as she projected his words into vivid images in her mind, frame by frame as he spoke until the fire of her imagination melted them like old film stock, and then go sad and listless when the images faded; it was Kit's freedom to leave, to go anywhere and do any damn thing he wanted, from the most tedious to the most sublime, when she was tethered to this house like one of the inmates of that Briarcliff place that had once been Kit's horror house prison.

Just today he'd caught her staring out the bedroom window, an upstairs one with a better and longer view than any of the ones downstairs.

_"Violet?" _

_She didn't answer right away, so he tried again. _

_"You okay? Is something out there?" _

_She turned away reluctantly and looked in his direction, but her gaze was distant and unfocused. _

_"No, nothing_."

* * *

Violet knew Tate was struggling and that it really pissed him off. He didn't like mixed emotions, instead preferring the cold clarity of rage or the exalted physicality of sexual passion. Those feelings evoked actions that were perfect refrains to the siren songs that sent him teetering over the edge of control, sanity restored in playing his part to the logical explosion that followed. It all worked very well as long as he wasn't thwarted somehow, and, if his anger and confusion over Kit's continued presence had yet to call up any actionable rage, it had certainly colored their time alone together.

Just when she thought she understood him, he expressed himself in unexpected ways.

_Violet felt strange, swoony and almost drugged-out in one sense but acutely awake in another, and it was Tate's doing. He has hovering over her, the weight of his upper body balanced on his forearms, and he was fucking her so, so slowly, slowly but deeply, easing in but ending each tantalizing stroke with extra emphasis before pulling almost all the way out and doing it again, over and over, not stopping when he bent his head to take as much of one of her small breasts into his mouth as he could and then let it slip back out to the nipple that he latched onto and bit lightly before curling it into his tongue and drawing his lips in closer to suck as he continued to draw her senses inward, inward and down, down to where he was entreating access to more than her body or even her womb, since they both knew that was no better than a mirage, a dessert no amount of seeding would ever bring to fruit. It was excruciating in the most bittersweet way possible, and in stark contrast she could almost picture the path to her orgasm as steps ascending inexorably upward with no end yet in sight. _

_"I love you so much, Vi. I'll love you forever, no matter what." _

_Somehow it didn't seem adequate to the occasion, but she answered him in kind. _

_"I'll love you forever too." _

_But it wasn't Tate's words, professions of eternal devotion from him weren't common, but he'd done it before. What made this time different was the way he was staring into her eyes, not daring her to maintain the eye contact like he used to enjoy doing when she was still getting used to how much more naked that made her feel than just having all of her skin exposed to his view. He hadn't needed to explain it because she understood quickly enough that screwing with her eyes closed wasn't giving herself to him the way he needed her to. It was like using his cock to masturbate. This time though he was peering into her like he was trying to extract something more, her soul maybe. And he looked unutterably sad, broken even, and she didn't know how to fix him. _

_"Come for me, only for me, please Violet." _

_When he demanded things of her like that it sent her reeling, already yearning and straining, she shuddered inwardly, one part of her nature wanting to resist, another wanting to cede all control to him in the moment, to let go of her ever-churning will and bend to his, his so darkly seductive, its source the universal unknowable maleness that her gender knew only as a mystery, but seasoned with his darkness, which made it all the more delicious. _

_She dug her fingers hard into the flesh of his ass, pulling him into her and wrapping her legs tighter and squeezing, and he responded as if she'd answered him aloud, finally going faster, angling to rub against her clit with every quickened stroke. Within moments she was tumbling over, the first contraction of it so intense she had to cry out. _

_"Tate._"

Only it had sounded like there were twenty "a's" in his name. Her nails had dug in and drawn blood as he continued to pound into her, like he was trying to break himself into a thousand splintered pieces against her unyielding bones, broken like his eyes, and she had only wanted so very badly not to know that no matter how tightly she was holding on right then, that nothing she could say or do would be able to convince him that nothing had changed. And the worst part was that Tate hadn't done the one thing that would make sure they changed back because he was letting Kit live, or be, if that was the better word for it, and that was what was tearing him apart.

* * *

It was never what he'd wanted. He'd only been hoping that living in the house might buy him enough time to entice these two ghosts in particular to reveal themselves to him, so he could try to find out if there really was some alien abduction connection between himself and Tate. He hadn't known if he'd be able to get them to even talk to him, but he'd thought that if he did that just maybe Tate might be happy to have some connection to the past, once he got past the alien part of it. But he could see now that he'd been crazy, a word he didn't even think lightly much less say, to picture things turning out that way. Now, he could see that it had been only so much wishful thinking born of how alone he felt once Lana had died.

Raquel was still around, but as soon as he'd stopped feeding her and asked her to turn him, so many years ago now, things had been different. She'd explained that it was one possibility, that a new vampire really only needed his maker to explain the rudimentary mechanics, and one that had been a feeder already knew almost everything. Some felt a closer bond with their maker after, but some didn't. Some wanted to go on and begin their own lives anew, and that was what had happened with him.

He'd never really wanted to be an actor either, but the money it brought was a way to do good and do it anonymously the way he'd wanted to before. Back in his own living life for that briefest of times when the world had seemed on the brink of changing for the better, and some things had. The world was a little bit better place for women and people of color and was finally starting to be for people like Lana, people who only wanted to be left alone to love who they loved and make every bit as much a mess of their lives as straight people did, but there was still so much to be done and still some people who were determined to stand in the way of all of it, to undo it even, and being a vampire made it possible for him to stay vigilant, to keep contributing any way he could.

Kit sighed. "Before" also meant before Alma and Grace died, even their names made such a mockery of the price he'd had to pay though, now that he had both lost the women so-named and sacrificed the attributes their names represented, something he'd tried to explain to Violet.

_"How'd you get this part? Did you study, or did Raquel teach you or what?" _

_Tate looked bored, but then he always did whenever Violet brought up the subject of Kit's current profession. Sometimes, he made a show of interest, probably for her sake, but it usually came out as sarcasm. _

_"Yes, do tell. Are you Method? You'd have plenty of stuff to use to go to your sad place, that's for sure." _

_"Not in the normal sense, but there's a vampire Method. People don't like to talk about it because some people who know about it consider it cheating, and it really pisses them off because they can't complain to anybody about it, or they'd end up in some fancier, nicer version of Briarcliff. There have been a few fist fights over the years at Oscar after-parties, but it gets hushed up." _

_Violet was apparently intrigued. _

_"Okay, spill it. What's the vampire Method?" _

_"Well, when a vampire feeds off a live person, the more blood they drink the more they start to feel and experience the experiences of the person they're drinking from. I've been told it feels like you're becoming the person, but it's dangerous. If the vampire lets himself get caught up in it and keeps going, the person can die, can't even be turned after a certain point when they're almost completely drained." _

_Tate was a little interested now too, despite himself. _

_"I can see where this is going. An actor vampire can go drink a person that has a life similar to some role they're chosen for, and I bet some people let them do it for money. Totally twisted." _

_"Correct. But before you get the wrong idea, I don't do that. Like you said, my own experiences are a deep enough well for me to pull from. My first role was a guest spot on one of those procedurals that they don't like it when you call it one. I played a guy in his teens that had been kidnapped as a child by a serial killer couple who ran a full-service funeral home, including a crematorium to get rid of the bodies. They kept me around to help them kidnap other kids. It was a pretty fucked-up plot, even for that show, but one of the actors on the show directed, and he was pretty cool. He made the whole story seem like the original scary version of one of the fairy tales that got cleaned up, so parents can feel okay about reading them at bedtime, in this case 'Hansel and Gretel.'" _

_Again, Tate couldn't seem to help himself, while Violet appeared to be thinking it over. _

_"Yeah, well, in your case, I'd still say truth is stranger than fiction, no offense." _

_"None taken." _

_Violet's eyes lit up as one side of her mouth lifted into a provocative half-smile that Kit knew he probably shouldn't find utterly charming. _

_"What about Daniel Day-Lewis? Is he a vampire? Cause that guy goes all out." _

_"I hate to disappoint you. I don't think he'd need to do all the extra stuff he does if he was a vampire, but I don't really know." _

_"Okay, I guess that makes sense." _

_"But to answer your original question, the casting director saw me in that role and asked me to come in and read for Kit Walker. It was pretty surreal." _

_Violet's curiosity wasn't satisfied. _

_"Have you ever turned anybody?" _

_"No." _

_"Why not?" _

_"I don't want to be responsible for what it does to them." _

_"What do you mean?" _

_"Well, as it was explained to me, there's a chance it means giving up your soul and any hope of a real after-life in a religious sense, no heaven anyway. Hell maybe." _

_"I don't believe in that stuff." _

_"Plenty of people do_."

Kit had only discovered the real reason for Violet's interest when she appeared at his bedside a few hours later after Tate was asleep, and it had started them all on the road to where they were now, and it meant going against everything he'd thought he believed in. Violet could have begged him until it drove him out of the house for good, and he wouldn't have done it for her, but that wasn't how things had turned out.

* * *

Tate was hiding something from her, and Violet didn't like it, not one bit. He'd be on the computer when she came into the room and then switch to some other page he had open, like he thought she couldn't see right through that. Whatever it was was driving him, capturing his full attention, and it had something to do with Kit.

* * *

Some part of him had hoped she'd say no when it came right down to it, but she hadn't. Instead, she'd promised to come back when they finished the location work for Kit's new movie that didn't have a title yet. _Alien-American_, on the other hand, was getting tons of buzz, and it hadn't even come out yet. Kit Forrester was setting the internet on fire too, mainly because he didn't seem to want to play the fame game. He refused most interviews, and when he did the few he had to for publicity for the film, he refused to answer any questions about his personal life.

And people sure loved to fill a vacuum with the craziest bullshit they could think of. There were rumors that he had a girlfriend, but there wasn't any proof. People marveled at how he kept her out of sight, and that was the one thing Tate found hilarious, but only because he was almost certain she wasn't his girlfriend at all. Violet had kept her ghostly abilities too, specifically invisibility in this case, when Kit turned her, so she could come and go as she pleased, even more than Kit could.

It had all been worth it just to see the unbridled joy on her face when she took that first step onto the sidewalk out front. It must have been just far enough away from where he was watching on the porch, but he couldn't be sure if there were tears in her eyes when she waved goodbye. It certainly couldn't have been his own tears misting his view. He'd been holding his breath because there was no way to know for sure if her vampire side would be able to overcome her ghost side until she broke free, his brave Violet. It also just went to show how wrong most of the fiction about vampires was, since Kit had assured them that all that stuff about having to be invited _into_ people's homes wasn't true. There went another of the biggest rules down the drain, thresholds.

Tate had had a hell of a time convincing Kit to do it too. For once something he'd learned from his bitch of a mother had ended up helping him instead of fucking him up, except for the part where sending Violet away had fucked him up no end. Tate had put Kit in touch with Billie Dean Howard, and, for a nice chunk of change, she'd gone to her sources while Kit had conferred with his, and between the two of them they'd confirmed it was possible to turn a ghost into a hybrid vampire. There was only one catch, or, actually, two, but the second one was only because of Kit.

First off, you had to have access to the ghost's body, or whatever was left of it. Since Violet's bones were still in the basement of the house, that was no problem. The second catch was the whole giving up your soul thing, and they'd let Violet think Kit had finally given in on that point.

Instead, it had taken everything he had to get Kit to agree, and in the end Tate had played dirty, but then he'd do anything to make Violet happy because, even though he knew she didn't believe him the one time he'd tried to tell her so, he really did put her feelings ahead of his own.

_"But Kit, you don't understand, it's my fault she's here." _

_"She told me you tried to save her, but she took too many pills, and it was too late. That's not your fault. If you were as awful as you seem to think you are, you could have just let her die on purpose, but you didn't. That means a lot." _

_"It doesn't mean shit because I'm the reason she set out to do it in the first place, when she found out what I'd done, what I am." _

_"You can't know that." _

_"Yes, I do. But even if you were right, it wouldn't matter." _

_"Why not?" _

_"Because I love her. This is my only chance to give her back something a little closer to the life she could have had if she never met me. It's not the same, but it's more than she has now, a hell of a lot more, and you know she wants it." _

_"Maybe so, but–" _

_"No buts–" _

_"She could be wrong about souls and heaven, all of it." _

_"What if there's a way she doesn't have to lose it?_"…

He'd finally been able to convince Kit once that second thing had worked out as well as it was going to, but he was getting so tired of holding on. He'd promised himself that he'd hang in until he was sure Violet was happy. It had been two months, and that was longer than Billie Dean had told them he'd have. So, it was worth it. He was just so tired.

* * *

Violet was furious. She kept pacing back and forth waiting to see if it would work, terrified it wouldn't, so she paced to _stay_ furious. At least there was still enough of Tate left to drink the blood that Kit dripped into his open mouth. He'd had to pull it open and hold it that way. She might never get that image out of her mind.

Finally, Tate was drinking in earnest, and when Kit yanked his arm away, Tate's eyes flew open. He looked confused, but he recoiled from the sight of Kit so close to him and raked the back of his hand over his mouth.

They'd decided that Kit, having been a vampire longer and having been turned by an ancient and very powerful vampire himself, since Jo Raquel Tejada wasn't any more her real name than Raquel Welch was, should be the one to try to revive Tate. Now it was her turn.

"You have something of mine, and I want it back."

"Violet. You're here. I don't understand."

He looked more than confused. He looked addled, addled and completely mad and tormented.

"Shut up."

She flung her arms around him and kissed him briefly before pulling away, the taste of Kit's blood blended with Tate's saliva a heady mix on her tongue as she sank her teeth into his neck, drinking deeply until she thought she'd sucked out enough to undo the damage.

"Is it really you?"

Violet wasn't sure she'd felt anything definitive herself, but she didn't care about that, didn't care if that part of the transfer worked as long as she got it out of him. The images that had been swirling around in her head as she drank from him were no help either because they kept changing points of view: one moment she was lost in those near-black eyes that more than ever felt sure to overwhelm her, to pull her into the maelstrom of his will, his desire to possess her, to unspool her from whatever thread of normalcy, of the mundane, that she'd ever thought could anchor her while she went about her own explorations of darkness, going at it slowly when she first met him, but even then blood-linked. The next moment shimmered with upswells of nostalgia for her old lost, unformed musings that she'd prefer the death of innocence from a thousand cuts to a sudden and final death roll into the blackness she instinctively knew was always there just behind Tate's eyes, but then it was her own face she'd see, opaque but opalescent, very nearly glowing with some sourceless light, and that had to be how Tate saw her, didn't it? The images and his blood, no, the images _were_ his blood, but that couldn't be right. It was all so beautiful that she did finally start to feel a terrifying, ecstatic bliss, better than any drug she could conceive of, and that was what made her certain it was time to stop.

She withdrew and unconsciously licked her lips, then realized it would have felt like sacrilege to waste one drop. Recovering herself, she searched his face.

"Answer me, Tate. Is it really you?"

"Yeah, it's me. What are you doing back here?"

"Did you really think I'd let you do it?"

"You weren't supposed to know. He wasn't supposed to tell you."

Tate glared weakly at Kit who raised his shoulders and let them fall.

"You oughta know it's impossible to tell her no."

Violet lifted Tate carefully in her arms and placed him on the bed, unable to keep from grinning at the surprise in his eyes even though she was still very angry with him.

"The part about super-human strength. True. And as soon as you feel better, I'm gonna use it to kick your ass. Don't you ever do it again, Tate. I mean it. Nobody makes decisions for me, not even you, no matter how much I love you and you say you love me, you fucking asshole. Rest now. I'll be here when you wake up."

Tate closed his eyes, and Violet turned hers to Kit.

"He's gonna be okay now, right?"

"I think so. He should be fine in a little while, however long it takes ghosts to regenerate from what would normally kill a living person. That's something vampires can't do, and you probably can't any more either, Violet. I wouldn't recommend testing the theory."

"I wasn't planning to."

* * *

Tate told Violet almost everything, how he'd gotten Kit to go along with his plan. She looked so peaceful now, lying asleep beside him where he thought he'd never have her again. He thought she might have already forgiven him. If she hadn't, he hoped she would soon. He'd done it all for her after all, but then again wasn't that one of the biggest reasons she'd been so pissed off about it? He'd have to make sure he didn't forget that part the next time he got some big idea. This time, he'd been too honed in on the details to take it into consideration.

"_All you have to do is make sure you don't drain her before I drain me, okay?" _

_"Are you sure you want to do this, Tate?" _

_"I'm sure." _

_Kit sat down and waited for Violet to appear, and Tate hid in the closet with the door open just enough so he could see to get the timing right. He didn't have to hide if all he'd wanted to do was watch, but he couldn't make material objects, like the knife he was holding in readiness, disappear, so it had to be the closet. _

_At the appointed time Violet walked into the room instead of materializing. _

_"I felt like being traditional for some reason. Not gonna over-think it now." _

"Are you–"

_"Don't even ask me that, Kit." _

_"Okay, sit down then." _

_Violet sat, and it was all Tate could do to stay in his hiding place as Kit gazed into Violet's eyes for a moment and then leaned into her neck. Her little moan when Kit bit down was almost too much to bear, but he had to stay focused. Kit continued to drink from Violet, and soon enough her consciousness began to fade. _

_Kit raised his arm in the agreed-upon signal, and Tate started slashing. He slashed both wrists in ugly, long vertical lines, just the way he'd explained it to Violet what seemed like so long ago. _

_It was almost funny if you had a really fucked-up sense of humor. After all, he had to be one of the only guys in history who actually got to kill himself twice. This time it was for a really good cause, not that adolescent noble war line of crap he'd fed Dr. Harmon. Well, at least he wouldn't have to watch her drink Kit's blood in return, the crucial final step that would complete the process. _

_"Goodbye, Violet." _

_He raised the knife again and slashed his throat_.

That had actually been just the first step of his second foray into suicide, symmetrically enough also a two-step process just as turning into a vampire was. He'd only been sure it worked that day when the invading presence of a second soul, Violet's, had done what Billie Dean had told them it would eventually, overwhelmed even his ghost body so that all it could do was go dormant for as long as it contained both his own and Violet's soul. The trick had been for the two of them to do something in death that they did all the time when they wrapped their naked bodies around each other like it was the only thing worth staying sane for because it was, and that was to go off together.

As she'd explained it to what she clearly wasn't sure was only Kit, her eyes constantly wandering the room to see if she could catch the glimpse of him Tate was just enough of a bastard not to let her have, as long as Tate and Violet "died" at the same time, it would make an opening for her soul to jump into his body because, being a ghost, Tate's death didn't have the same mystical connotations that becoming a vampire had. In other words, his soul wouldn't have any reason to actually go anywhere, but there'd be a tiny window of time when Violet's could crash the party.

Tate had tried to make himself believe that he didn't care if it worked or not. He didn't know if there was a heaven, but never being able to leave this house was Violet's hell, and she'd already decided on her own that she wanted to risk it, just as Kit must have himself, the hypocrite, so if he had to sell Kit on the idea that he was willing to be the Sleeping Beauty keeper of her soul in order to get him to agree to turning her, then Tate was up for it. It wasn't a lie. He had been willing.

So, in a way he didn't really expect Violet to understand, it _had_ actually been mostly her own decision or would have been if Billie Dean had been wrong instead of right. If Violet's soul had just gone bouncing off into the ether, not caring that Tate was practically floating in his own personal pool of vampire fuel in the closet waiting for it to hitch a ride, then Tate's part of the whole equation wouldn't have had any effect on anything, which he figured that, once again, he'd be the only one of the lot of them to think was pretty freakin' hilarious, but then maybe you had to have been raised by Constance to develop just exactly the right kind of fucked-up sense of humor to want to laugh your ass off over the nearly-universal triumph of both human and ghostly futility.

The only thing Violet had been pretty disappointed about was when Tate had told her that it wouldn't be possible for her to turn him into a hybrid vampire too once she became one because the bones thing meant Tate had to be able to go where his were, and he couldn't. Digging Violet's up and hiding them under the couch had been pretty morbid, but still doable.

If Violet had never come back to him because she fell in love with Kit instead or was just having too damn good a time, he would have had to accept it. That had honestly been his own selfish reason for hoping the soul transfer would work because then he wouldn't have had to stick around, wide awake and utterly alone, missing her. Either way though, he owed her, and he loved her, and he wasn't the only one. It was a shame there was one last irony that he wouldn't ever be able to share with Violet. He couldn't because he'd promised Kit that, if he turned Violet, Tate would never be the one to let her know.

He'd used it to his advantage as the final straw to win Kit over, so he couldn't go back on his word now.

…"_Because I love her. This is my only chance to give her back something a little closer to the life she could have had if she never met me. It's not the same, but it's more than she has now, a hell of a lot more, and you know she wants it." _

_"Maybe so, but–" _

_"No buts–" _

_"She could be wrong about souls and heaven, all of it." _

_"What if there's a way she doesn't have to lose it?" _

_"What if there is? You'd still be willing to let her go? I can't believe that. You'd regret the hell out of it, and this stuff is pretty unpredictable. She might never want to come back. How could you stand it?" _

_"Wouldn't you have done it for Alma or Grace if you had the chance?" _

"_Maybe. I don't know." _

_"Well, I know why you don't believe me." _

_"What are you talking about?" _

_"It's what I was afraid of all along. Maybe you're right. Maybe we are alien twins or something, but even if that's complete crap, we're still the same somehow. That's how I know, even if you haven't admitted it to yourself yet because you're so fucking noble, you love her too." _

_"You're crazy." _

"_No, I'm not. You're in love with Violet too. It sucks for you now because she still only loves me, or at least I think so, but it's why you don't understand how I can be asking you to do it. But, hey, things might change; she might go for you once you do your vampire magic. " _

_"I'd never take advantage of her like that. If she ever thought she loved me, it'd be because I have your face, to her anyway, even though I technically had it first." _

_"Is Kit making a funny? And here I thought being a vampire meant you didn't know how." _

_"None of this is funny to me." _

_"Too bad. Whatever happens, I'll always know I love her more than you do because I want to do this for her, and you don't._"

There was no way to know what Violet would decide next. She could ask Kit to turn her again, if it was even necessary. After all, she'd been able to lift and carry his exsanguinated ass like a sack of baby potatoes, so she still had her vampire strength even if she had sucked her own soul back in when she pulled it out of him. None of them would know for sure until she tried again to leave the house. If Kit did have to do it again, this time there'd be no secret funny business going on, and Tate would have to stay conscious while she went on walkabout for varying lengths of time, maybe even with Kit, but Tate didn't care about any of that right now. Right now he was sure of the only things that had mattered to him since the day he knew she was his only one, the day she took his soul in the metaphorical, if not the metaphysical, sense: She loved him, and she'd always come back to him, and that was enough.

* * *

**A/N:** My prompter wanted Tate, Violet, Violate, Kit/Violet, and "A little horror with a lot of romance, something Vampire-y maybe?" Also, an AU setting.

The part about Raquel Welch's character name in the movie _Lady in Cement_ is true, and it was actually released in 1968.

It wasn't his first role or anything as I have it for Kit, but Evan Peters did play a character named Charlie Hillridge, who is much as I described, on _Criminal Minds_ in the Season 5 episode entitled "Mosley Lane" directed by series co-star Matthew Gray Gubler and first broadcast in 2010. You should watch it if you haven't already. Also, MGG is definitely an exception to the "three names = douche bag" concept I put in Violet's mouth near the beginning of the story.


End file.
